


Snacking Between Meals

by tawg



Series: The Dangers of Dating a High School Principal [15]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU - civilian Phil, Avenger Clint, M/M, Principal Coulson, humps and bumps in an established relationship, humps and bumps with regards to life in general tbh, let's be real it would not be easy to be involved with an Avenger, small cameo by an AoS character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 04:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2095758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The weird thing about a relationship is that so much of one will happen while one half of it isn’t around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snacking Between Meals

In many ways, Phil knew that he was lucky. 

The school year was slowly drawing to a close and that meant longer hours as teachers got sick and stressed and the students started acting up. Phil also spent much of his free time attempting to review the year’s programs with thought to how to improve them next time, given that he was likely the only person who gave deep consideration to the state of the school curriculum over the summer. Finding accommodation for Boryn was going to be a problem, given the wyrm’s unstable status in the realm and general unwillingness to leave the horde of books unattended. Phil sometimes found himself reaching out to pat Mittens the Second but, of course, she was still in care and likely would be for several months. Phil visited her when he could, sent photos of her to Clint and got sympathetic emoticons in response. He wasn’t sure who else he could even discuss his little cat with. No point in risking the wrath of SHIELD unintentionally.

So when Phil came home, after a long and irritating day that involved far too much time spent on the subway in peak hour just so he could poke a gloved finger through a little hole in an incubator and stroke over fur that was not as glossy as it should be, and found Clint pottering around in the small kitchen with a dish cloth tucked into his pants to keep them relatively safe from messy hands, he was touched. There was a hot dinner involved, and they did the washing up together, and Clint had looked so very handsome as they talked. There was a quiet pride in his face, a happiness that Phil realised he didn’t often see. 

There was the added benefit that Clint was bored out of his mind while he was still on medical leave, and that apparently tensions in the tower were continuing to strain. Getting Clint out of there for a few hours every evening seemed to help. Sometimes Clint would stay the night, and sometimes he would leave before the dishes were even carried to the sink. A few times they had gotten distracted by other things, by trying to chase the smell of smoke out of Phil’s mattress, and they’d had to order in dinner as Clint’s creation had overcooked into inedibility. But at least the smell of burned dinner blended in nicely with generally smoked atmosphere of the building. 

So in terms of having a sweet and considerate man in his life, who was a joy to spend time with because Clint was a fount of anecdotes and thoughts and questions when he had to occupy himself, Phil was very, very lucky. There was just a few small problems, one of them being that Clint’s cooking was probably taking years off Phil’s life.

“Good dinner last night?” Nina asked as she eyed Phil’s lunch box. It was filled with cubes of cucumber, cherry tomatoes, and slices of golden bell pepper. Phil had started out the week with ham and salad sandwiches and slowly phased out anything that wasn’t wonderful vegetable matter. 

“I’m pretty sure he thinks the food pyramid only had two categories, carbs and cheese,” Phil replied flatly.

“In his defence, they’re the best categories,” Nina replied, before sliding over to sit at the complete opposite end of the teacher’s lounge. Phil and Nina saw a lot of one another throughout the day. While Phil was fond of the school secretary, neither of them pretended that they were the highlight of one another’s social life. 

Phil tended to eat in his office during the more hectic parts of the year because it kept him away from his teachers. They had to deal with snotty students and classroom clashes – they didn’t need Phil ruining their few moments of free time by turning lunch into yet another assessment meeting. It went both ways – his staff asked him about various things whenever they saw him, so his own lunches in the staff room usually revolved around work. At least when he ate in his office he could close the door and watch an episode of ‘Whose Line is it Anyway’ on his phone. But Nina didn’t like it when Phil tucked himself away for too long, and so there was an inverted bell curve representing the time that Phil spent in the staff room, with a decrease in his presence when the year picked up but an increase as they headed into frayed nerves and exam-related tantrums. 

“Must be nice having someone cook for you,” Gregory said glumly, frowning at his own salad. He had been involved with a woman he knew online before his incident, but apparently things had cooled off significantly once she’d seen his fuzzy little hamster face. On the other hand, Gregory’s salad had walnuts and dried cranberries in it, so his life wasn’t entirely without perks.

“It’s very sweet of him,” Phil agreed. Phil could cook. He could cook quite well, though it wasn’t his favourite thing to do. Cooking for a single person was tricky, and he always ended up with small containers of leftovers of indiscriminate age accumulating suspiciously in the back of his fridge. He would probably live quite happily on sandwiches and juice if he hadn’t been thoroughly conditioned in his youth on the importance of eating a balanced dinner.

“I’ve always wondered how cooking works in a homosexual relationship,” Bernice said, her brow furrowed as she considered the problem.

“Depends what kind of appliance they get when they’re recruited to the gay lifestyle,” Karen deadpanned. Bernice taught English and sometimes seemed to struggle with having to live in a non-fiction world. In contrast, Karen was one of the most down-to-earth people Phil worked with, and left the music students she tried to educate with bruised egos and a kind of spiteful determination.

“But really though,” Bernice persisted, giving Phil a considering look. “I don’t know a man who can cook or clean to save his life. What do you do when there’s two of you?” Something seemed to occur to her, and her face cleared. “Oh! Or do you all each Chinese take out all the time like on the TV?”

“Men can cook,” Phil replied. 

“Men can do lots of things,” Karen agreed with a sweet, mildly patronising tone, and Phil gave her a sour look.

“Well, I’ve certainly heard people say that,” Bernice agreed. “But people say all kinds of things.”

“Some men can even do their own laundry,” Phil said, keeping his tone light and impersonal.

“Shhfp,” Gregory hissed through his oversized front teeth. “They’ll start expecting all of us to do it!”

Phil managed to catch Nina’s eye across the teacher’s lounge, and gave her the kind of blank, dead-eyed stare that let her know that he was blaming her for the conversation being inflicted upon him. She smirked in response. She had to put up with the staff socially far more often than Phil did, and his unsympathetic replies of “They’re not that bad” were slowly but systematically being punished. He was sure that Nina encouraged Bernice to ask him these things. 

Phil pulled his phone out and checked for a message from Clint. He wasn’t expecting one, but was keen for a distraction. He was also trying to train Clint to check in with him. Clint being able to get into Phil’s apartment without a key (or, at times, without using a door at all) had it perks, but the unpredictable nature of Clint’s presence had already led to some kerfuffles with there being too many dinners in Phil’s apartment or groceries running out ahead of schedule. Sometimes Phil just wanted to go home and lie on his couch with his eyes closed for a while, but that wasn’t the most romantic activity and so he liked having the journey home to work himself up into a more sociable mood.

There was no message from Clint, and Phil spent a moment staring at his wallpaper. A photo of Mittens, in healthier times. Phil didn’t even have a picture of Clint on his phone. Clint had never sent one, and their relationship had gotten off to such a rocky start that Phil hadn’t wanted to take one and then have to delete it days later. After reading through the rules and regulations for dating a superhero, Phil wasn’t sure if he was even allowed to have photos of Clint, let alone one stored on something as insecure as a common smart phone. 

“Waiting for a call?” Gregory asked.

Phil realised that he was frowning at his phone, made an effort to straighten his face, and tucked his phone back into a pocket. “No,” he said, jabbing his fork into a tomato. “Just sorting through my calendar.”

“How are things going with the young man?” Karen asked. Clint was Phil’s first partner since starting at Crosstown High, and his visits had attracted some attention. There was a difference in the way some people looked at him. Conversation had revealed that it was a mix of curiosity as to how they had met to surprise that Clint was Phil’s type. Phil suspected that there was also some doubt that he was Clint’s type, as Clint was ruggedly handsome and built with a lean kind of muscle that easily looked dangerous, and Phil had a receding hairline and was slowly losing the battle against his paunch. 

Clint was... a lot of things. There was an intensity to him when something attracted his attention that was admirable and sexy and a little frightening at times. He was clever and deadly and humble and seemed unthinkingly honest right until Phil thought back over their conversation and realised that Clint had, once again, avoided talking about himself. 

“Good,” Phil replied, because that seemed as close to accurate as any other single-word response. Not perfect, not awful. They were still finding their feet, but had been together for long enough that it felt like they should be past that stage. Phil speared a chunk of cucumber and frowned at it. He really needed a dinner that wasn’t built on the premise of getting something unhealthy and melting cheese over it. He pulled his phone out and sent Clint a brief text.

**You coming over tonight?**

If Clint wasn’t, then Phil would drop into the store on the way home and pick up some fresh supplies. He’d spent the morning fantasising about stuffed bell peppers, about a lamb salad with cubes of orange and shredded beetroot. Picking up a bag of dried cranberries and trying to match Gregory’s salad was also a tempting option. His phone vibrated, and Phil swyped through to his messages. 

**Sure** 

Phil frowned, went to reply, and then wondered how to explain that it hadn’t exactly been an invitation. He was sure he could cancel with minimum fuss, but at the same time Phil knew that he went into grouchy periods and it seemed ridiculous to be upset about someone wanting to spend time with him. Phil pressed his phone against his mouth, resting his front teeth against the case. He’d had the bad habit two phones ago of gnawing on one corner, and it had taken two cracked screens to convince him to try and switch to some other destructive tic.

“Something troubling you?” Beatrice asked cautiously. Phil pushed away his frown once again, and made a note to stay sociable when surrounded by his staff. If Beatrice was noticing his bad mood, then it was more conspicuous than Phil was comfortable with.

“Just thinking about dinner,” he replied, which wasn’t untrue. “Clint’s coming over and I’m not sure what we should cook.”

“I have a recipe book for couples,” Beatrice replied. “Paul and I did a cooking class together. A kind of therapy, teamwork thing.”

“Effective, was it?” Karen asked dryly. 

Bea’s face fell. Her divorce had taken place during the year before Phil had moved to New York. He’d specifically avoided personal talk with her for the first two months on the job, because she’d had a lot to say on the matter and he’d had his own bad breakup to be angry about. Getting into caustic conversations about exes wasn’t an ideal way to make friends, in Phil’s view.

“What kind of recipes did it have?” he asked, and gave Karen a sharp look to encourage her to butt out. 

“Oh, everything,” Bea replied. “It had some roasts. Fancy side dishes to keep you both busy while the meat cooks. Or desserts to prepare, that kind of stuff. But you can speed it all up if you buy canned tomatoes instead of stewing your own.”

Phil didn’t own a cookbook. He had a stock of meals he’d prepared ever since he was a teen, and then some fancier recipes torn out of magazines that tended to float around in the oddments drawer until they got tattered enough to throw out. 

“Sounds interesting,” he said, making an effort to sound legitimately interested.

“I could lend it to you,” Bea offered. Then she refocussed and seemed to remember who she was talking to. Most of his staff had moments of realising that they were dishing the dirt to someone who could choose not to renew their contracts; Beatrice seemed to have moments when she remembered that Phil was her boss, and male, and gay all at once and it sometimes left her stammering. “If you like, that is. You did say that you can already cook?”

Phil had no desire to return to their earlier conversation of men and their hypothetical cooking skills. “It would be nice to look over something new,” he said instead. 

Bea nodded, and some other teachers began packing away their lunch containers, and Gregory stuffed the remainder of his salad into his cheeks. Phil wondered whether he kept it for later, or finished chewing on his way to his next class. Gregory was still sensitive about the change, and Phil didn’t like to pry. He tipped the last of his own loose definition of a salad into the trash. He had an apple in his bag to eat on the way home. He should just text Clint with some dinner ideas and take the mystery out of the arrangement. He’d suggest they go out and eat, but his finances were a little stretched due to fire-related things. 

He pushed the tangle of small problems to the back of his mind as he settled back into his office chair and tried to work up the enthusiasm to finish replying to e-mails. Half-way through composing a reply to a request to deliver a careers presentation to the student body, he received another text from Clint.

**work sorry**

Phil drummed his fingers lightly against his computer keyboard, and then dragged his mind back on task. The little knot of concern over dinner had easily changed formation and become a twanging string of worry about something else. But Phil got through the afternoon, received a brief update on Mittens towards the end. He went home and stared at the contents of his fridge for a long moment, hoping that something in it would somehow become appealing. He walked down to the corner store and paid too much for a punnet of strawberries and a banana, then went back to the smoky smell of home and made a fruit smoothie for dinner. He was nearly fifty. He was allowed to have a smoothie for dinner if he wanted. 

He didn’t hear from Clint again that night, and he told himself that no news was better than hearing bad news from someone else on Clint’s team. Things could definitely be a lot worse.

~*~

Phil had grown up with a particular interest in superheroes. Largely because the other boys his age had all been obsessed with astronauts, and Phil had been quite contrary as a youth. And then he’d become a teen and there was a particular niche for people who liked comic books and he had fit in there quite neatly. He’d never exactly been passionate about the whole thing. Which was a shame, because perhaps if he had paid more attention to the tumultuous lives played out in four colours he would have been slightly more prepared for the ups and downs of dating an Avenger.

Clint had been away for three days. While that certainly wasn’t the longest they had been apart, or even the longest that Clint had been away on a mission, it was a significantly different experience for Phil. There was press coverage, for a start. A lot of it. 

Phil knew that Clint was still technically on leave and knew that Clint should be well away from the action. There should have been nothing to worry about. But when the Avengers turned up it was because things needed to be done, and Clint didn’t exactly have the normal aversion to danger. While Phil’s stomach had dropped at the photos splashed across the news sites of Clint apparently riding the Hulk’s shoulders into battle, he hadn’t been surprised. He was a lot of other things, but definitely not surprised.

He was angry. Angry at SHIELD, for throwing Clint out there while he was still healing. Or, perhaps more accurately, for letting Clint ignore doctors’ orders and put himself out there. Clint didn’t talk about the heroic side of his job often. He would talk about training and seminars and paperwork and interpersonal conflict, and then would skim over the fact that he sometimes strapped on some barely-there body armour and took a bow and arrow into fights that packed a lot more punch. Clint would brush it off as though it were no big deal a lot of the time, and then make flirty jokes about it when it did come up. But his reluctance to talk about it didn’t hide the fact that he loved it.

Phil certainly didn’t blame him. He’d been in big, scary skirmishes and knew that there was something sweet and thrilling about coming out the other side. And, as some of his friends liked to remind him, Phil hadn’t grown out of that as much as he should have. His cousin Savvy had often said that Phil had the survival instincts of a dog playing in traffic. 

It wasn’t that Phil begrudged Clint his passion, or even that he disapproved of it. It was just that, for the first time, Phil was entangled with someone who had buildings thrown at him on a regular basis. Clint’s best friend was an assassin. It left Phil wondering if he should be grateful that Clint had _talented_ friends or concerned that his enemies might be worse. 

It was a strange feeling, worrying about someone else in this way. Not worry that bills wouldn’t get paid or that a contract wouldn’t be extended or that a flu might actually be pneumonia. Those very real and very tight worries were a world away from the feeling that wrapped itself around his joints and left him hunched over in front of his tablet, watching grainy videos on youtube before they could be taken down and scrolling through every article for some glimpse or mention of Clint, some confirmation that he was still in one piece.

It was a feeling that Phil didn’t like, and in between worrying about Clint and trying to force himself to stop worrying, he wondered if it was one that he would become used to.

The skirmish drew to a close around lunchtime on the third day. They’d been fighting somewhere in the Pacific, and the footage there showed that it was night time, pre-dawn. Iron Man streaked across the sky like a firework that never quite went off, and Captain America waved to the helicopter-mounted spotlights and then directed them with large hand gestures, requesting that the news teams put their lights to good use and illuminate the clean up. There was footage of the Hulk, crouched low on his haunches and squeezing a dismembered tentacle with one hand and frowning at the way it squirmed. Phil caught a brief glimpse of Hawkeye next to him, sitting in the rubble with his legs spayed, chatting to his buddy. Just a brief impression of him, just enough to see that he was essentially okay.

Phil leaned back in his office chair, elbow on the armrest and his chin resting on a loose fist. He didn’t feel as relieved as he had hoped. But still, there was work to do and his excuse for worrying himself to distraction had just removed itself. There were likely articles about Clint’s return to the scene and assessments of his performance being written already. Phil had read a number of them when he had first met Clint. The idea of reading them now seemed strange. He probably shouldn’t occupy himself with what was essentially gossip about his partner. 

Phil slid his tablet away and tried to bully himself into getting some work done.

~*~

He got a text from Clint while he was walking home, trying to shake the tight jitters from his limbs.

**you free tonight**  
**??**

Phil barely read the message before typing a question of his own, though he struggled to find the right words. ‘Are you okay?’ seemed too vague; ‘have you been hurt?’ seemed far too direct. He ducked out of the path of foot traffic and leaned against a building, tapping his phone against his front teeth as he mentally drafted a reply.

**I’m glad to hear from you. Free for what?**

**cool. I’ll call you with details when I’m in town**

Phil frowned at his phone. At least the implication was that Clint would be back in New York that evening. And that he wouldn’t be quarantined or confined to medical or similar. Phil carried on home to his empty apartment. There were certainly things that needed doing. 

His book collection still smelled smoky. His insurance provider had agreed to pay for a cleaner to come in and de-smoke the apartment. It had made an improvement, but not a great one. He could pay for someone else to come in and try again, but money was a little tight and his insurance company would only reimburse him if an assessor judged the apartment and found that it needed a more thorough cleaning. Which of course meant that he had to wait for the assessor to have a free moment to look his place over that lined up with Phil having a free moment himself. Judging by the game of phone-tag they had played so far, Phil suspected it wouldn’t happen until summer vacation had begun.

The assessor had also told Phil that it might simply be a case of certain possessions being ruined, in which case his insurance covered him to have them replaced up to a certain value. Phil had no qualms with replacing his mattress, no matter how much affection Clint had for it. It was a token from a previous relationship and Phil had taken it with him because he’d paid for the bed and hadn’t felt any need to be kind or generous towards his ex. But he was far less willing to replace his books. He was fond of his little library.

Nina had suggested that he simply order new copies of those books for the school library, mark the old school copies down as having been donated to a good cause, and take them home himself. It wasn’t exactly a bad plan. Perhaps a little immoral, but Phil had worked with teachers who sold drugs to their students and made a hobby of crafting weapons in the school workshop. In the grand scheme of educationally-supported immorality, Nina had told him, it was simply a larger, classier version of stealing stationary. 

(Nina was a big fan of stealing stationary, and Phil had gotten around her trick of ordering fancy pens and squirreling most of them away for her own use by double-checking the orders before they were put in and then buying her a reasonably nice pen every few months.)

Phil had been a teacher for about twenty years, and he had a library of worn and weary books to prove it. The novels he had taught in English classes, some textbooks from when he had taught History, a strange mash of books that were filled with chapters on everything from writing essays to identifying queer subtexts that he had photocopied and handed out for years and years. And many of them had his own notes in the margins, or had been given to him after years of use by other teachers and had their shorthand and doodles and highlighted phrases. It was not a collection that he was interested in simply replacing.

He had spoken to Miss Eliana about it when he had helped her carry suitcases stuffed with clothes down the hall and to the lift. Her nephew owned a dry-cleaning business and was helping her de-smoke her own possessions on the condition that she didn’t move into his home. She had given Phil a jar of coffee grounds (“Too bitter. I want bitter, I look at my pension,”) and suggested that he put each book in a bag with a tea spoon of the coffee and leave them for at least a week. It would either pull the smoke smell out of the paper and card, or it would make his books smell like burned coffee. Either option seemed like an improvement.

So that was how Phil spent his afternoon. Wearing track pants and a worn long-sleeved shirt with thick socks on his feet because he had taken to opening his windows wide when he was home and the air was warmer than it had been but still chilled as the afternoon wore on. He had his iPod playing through his stereo and occasionally let himself skid across the floorboards as he moved from one part of the living area to another. Phil liked most genres of music, but one of the many side effects to being surrounded by teens was that most of his music collection tended to be pop music. Pink was singing about getting the party started for the third time that afternoon when he realised that his phone was vibrating. 

“Hey,” he said as he answered the call, the irritation that had shadowed him all afternoon evaporating.

“Hi,” Clint replied, and he sounded worn out but well.

“You sound tired.”

“I think I have a good excuse,” Clint returned, a teasing note in his voice. “I napped on the flight back, so I probably sound worse than I feel.” He sounded a little hoarse, sounded like he needed to be fed soup and then left to sleep for several days.

“You don’t sound too bad,” Phil replied. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Me too,” Clint said breezily, as if they were talking about some idle convergence of interests. “Hey, you still free tonight?”

Phil surveyed the twenty or so zip-lock bags on his kitchen table, each one equipped with a tea spoon of coffee grounds and waiting for a book. “Pretty free,” Phil returned. “Why?”

“There’s this press thing happening soon,” Clint explained. “With news people and stuff. And Tony has this party scheduled to start about ten minutes after the press thing. Free booze and tiny foods on plates and shit.”

Phil considered the invitation. It had been a while since he had been to anything with free booze and ‘tiny foods’, and there was a little geeky part of him that thought that going to an Avengers press conference would be incredibly cool. He would probably have to change out of the track pants though. And there were a few other things to consider.

“And you want me there as...?” he asked, letting the question trail off. 

There was a hint of surprise in Clint’s voice when he replied. “I just thought it would be fun,” he said. “Pepper said I should invite you.”

Phil closed his eyes and scrunched his nose up as he rubbed at his forehead. “Where is it?” he asked.

“Some giant room in Stark Tower,” Clint replied. “In about an hour.” Phil looked at his watch, did the math for how long it would take him to get to Midtown, and was trying to find a nice way to explain that it wasn’t going to happen when Clint added, “There’s already someone coming to pick you up, so if it’s going to be too late for you or whatever then let me know so I can call her back?”

Phil bit his lower lip for a moment to hold back his sigh. “That makes it a lot easier,” he said at last, keeping his tone light. It would be good to see Clint, it would be an interesting night, one interesting story to tell if he would be allowed to tell it. “What’s the dress code?”

“I dunno,” Clint replied. “We’re all going to be in our gear. Though Bruce is probably gonna have a shirt and shoes and stuff. Whatever. You always look nice.” And Phil couldn’t help but smile at the way Clint sounded almost shy as he tacked the compliment on the end.

“Okay,” he said. “I can look nice for you.” Clint made a pleased sound, and Phil’s smile widened a little. “How long to I have to prettify myself?”

“Uhh.” There was a short scuffle on the other end of the line as Clint shifted a digit over the mouthpiece and asked someone nearby. “A while,” he replied. “Maybe twenty minutes? She knows to wait for you though.”

Phil huffed a small laugh to himself. From the handful of SHIELD agents he had met, he doubted that his escort would wait patiently. “Alright,” he said. “I guess I’ll be seeing you soon.”

“Cool,” Clint said happily.

“Cool,” Phil echoed.

~*~

Phil had shaved again and used a wet comb to neaten his hair out, reapplied the various things that kept him smelling pleasant, and changed into a newish light-grey suit. His theory was that the press present would be in their professional wear, and it would be easy enough for him to blend in. He hadn’t had time to shine his shoes, but he did wipe them down with a damp cloth. He wore a crisp white shirt with a pair of modest, onyx cufflinks. He couldn’t decide which tie to wear, so he went without. He wore a suit all day anyway. He should be allowed to dress down a little in the evenings.

There was a neat rap at his door, two sharp knocks and then silence on the other side. When Phil looked through the peep hole the agent on the other side was staring back, her face slightly too stern to be expressionless. Phil opened the door and saw that she was wearing something that looked an awful lot like a tactical suit, though it was not as bulky as the ones Phil had seen in the past. It was fitted and stylish, and could easily pass as a common workplace uniform. But Phil could see the small bulges in thigh pockets that suggested that flat, important objects were being kept there, and the agent’s vest had stiff sections that gave the impression of hidden body armour. Her hair was loose and fell down past her shoulders, but she had the wide, strong stance of someone who was very good at combat. Phil waited for her to introduce herself, or at least confirm that she was his ride, but she merely scrutinised him in turn and then gave him a mildly impatient look. 

“I’m not moving until I know who you are,” Phil said at last. It seemed paranoid to his own ears, but SHIELD agents had this quirky little habit of detaining or threatening him. Sometimes both. He at least wanted to know who to complain about later.

“Agent May,” she replied in a toneless voice. Then she frowned a little before dipping her head ever so slightly. “At your service,” she added, though it was clearly just a token formality.

“Hi,” Phil replied. “Do I invite you in?” he asked. “Or would that be weird?”

Agent May sighed through her nose and stepped sharply forwards, and Phil backed up and opened the door so she could step through. She glanced quickly around the apartment and then returned her attention to Phil, as if not willing to take her eyes off him for any length of time. “Arms up,” she said.

Phil blinked at her. “Excuse me?” His first thought was that he was being held up, though at least she was more polite than past muggers had been.

“Arms up,” Agent May repeated. When Phil didn’t move her mouth became a little more severe, turning down at the corners. “For a pat-down,” she explained.

“Ah,” Phil replied as he shifted his feet apart and lifted his arms up. “Of course.” She stepped in close and put her hands under his jacket to pat down his sides, and then checked his pockets, pulling out the contents – his phone and wallet – and setting them on the small table by the door. “Is this really necessary?” he asked as she crouched down to check his legs.

Agent May stood up and added a few more items to the pile, before picking up his wallet and flicking through it. Phil opened his mouth to protest, and she silenced him with a look. She pulled out a metal bottle opener that was flat like a credit card, and handed his wallet back. Then she picked up his phone, the taser she had removed from his suit jacket, the stainless steel pen he’d had in his inner jacket pocket, and pulled the not-at-all-useful mini pocketknife off his keyfob. She held them up silently for his inspection, then turned and tossed them down the short entrance hall and into his living room. 

Phil watched his possessions bounce and skitter across the floorboards, and then turned to her with a grumpy frown. “Okay,” he said at last. “But I don’t understand the pen.”

Agent May raised one eyebrow by the smallest fraction of an inch, and then inclined her head towards the door. Phil smoothed his jacket down and then let her lead him out of his own apartment. The way she waited for him in the hall with her eyes glued to the door to the stairwell next to it made it seem like she was on point.

“Can we take the lift?” Phil asked. “Or do we have to rappel down the side of the building?”

Agent May turned back to him, and then dropped her eyes to look his body over once more, this time with a clearly disdainful expression on her face. Then she took four long steps forward and hit the elevator call button. Phil checked that his door was locked and trailed after her. “I could rappel down a building,” he said, a little defensively, as they waited for the lift. She gave him a glance out of the corner of her eye, still disbelieving but possibly with a hint of amusement to her expression. “It’s just that you look very composed and I don’t want to mess up your hair,” he added as the lift reached their floor.

Agent May turned slowly and gave him a long look as the elevator doors opened. “Get in and be quiet,” she said. Phil did as he was told.

~*~

The press conference was held in Stark Tower’s ‘lesser ballroom’, a room that would be cavernous if it weren’t for the last of the daylight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows that wrapped around a long, curved wall, and the artful mess of small lights that appeared to have been scattered across the ceiling. The floor looked like white marble shot through with grey, but a small plaque near the door informed people that it was an artificial stone made out of recyclables collected from the various Stark Industries sites around America. Phil stamped his heel down on the floor a few times. It didn’t feel like papier-mâché.

There was a long table set up on a raised platform, draped with a white tablecloth. Phil could see Pepper Potts and a tall dumpy man in a suit with a security ID badge bickering in professionally low voices near it. Phil could lip read swear words and slurs with reasonable accuracy, but their polite conversation was beyond his ability. But given that the man was holding a lot of gold fabric and Potts seemed to be saying ‘no’ over and over again, he assumed it was a discussion about the décor.

The actual area for the press conference seemed small in the huge room. There were round tables draped with white tablecloths and gold sashes, complete with centrepieces of strange and tangling red sticks pressed against one wall, in preparation for some kind of function. The beauty and opulence of the space was marred by the tangle of electrical cables that led to the knot of journalists by seven neat rows of seats. Cameras were set up and operators stood by them, occasionally shifting angle slightly but mainly chatting to one another. Some reporters were untangling their microphone cables while others were snapping at technicians to do it for them. Handsome and polite faces that were bright and eager and hungry. Agent May had instructed Phil not to talk to anyone, and it seemed like reasonable advice. He drifted away from them, over to the wall of windows. 

The lesser ballroom was on the south-west corner of the building, about twenty floors up. Tony Stark had bought the MetLife building and constructed his tower through it, which led to some interesting architecture. Stark liked high ceilings and sweeping curves, so the part of the MetLife building that the roots of his extension passed through had been given a makeover while also being healed from the experience of having new supports thrust through them. As a result, the raised ceilings in the Stark areas meant that Phil had gotten out of a lift on the twenty-second floor, but the office area on the same level was listed as being the twenty-sixth floor. Regardless as to which level he was on, he was afforded a pleasant enough view out over the roof of Grand Central and the Facebook building across the street. The sun was disappearing behind the skyline to the west, and the sky was a mix of pinks and oranges. As Phil watched, a comet of red streaked towards the building and then swooped up along the side. The chatter of the press in the room barely paused; apparently they were all used to such sights.

Phil heard the click of approaching heels and turned slightly to acknowledge his company. Pepper Potts, looking delightful in a sleek grey dress and a simple gold chain around her neck. She smiled at him, a rueful expression that was more than professional but still communicated that they weren’t exactly friends. “Phil,” she said warmly. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“And you,” Phil returned. “Thank you for inviting me.”

Pepper waved a hand dismissively. “Plus-ones are always invited, though I will admit that they rarely turn up.”

Phil wanted to ask what kind of a ‘plus one’ he was, whether he was attending as Hawkeye’s boyfriend in a public, immediately obvious kind of way, or if he was more of a general bystander who should keep the hand-holding behind closed doors. He and Clint hadn’t talked about the potential impact of the press in their lives. They’d both been preoccupied with trying to get some actual time together. It seemed like the kind of conversation that would happen when they finally fell into a groove for their relationship. Phil was regretting not bringing it up earlier, but Pepper was waiting for Phil to hold up his side of the conversation so he replied, “Clint told me there would be free food.”

Pepper laughed a little, and then let her face settle into a smile that showed her lovely teeth. “I’ll have to be sure to put that on the invitations next time. We should be starting soon; Tony just had to dash over to Miami to grab a tie.”

“As you do,” Phil replied dryly. Pepper turned and walked towards the knot of reporters, and Phil trailed after her. Agent May had disappeared once Phil had been seen to the ballroom, but Phil could spot several SHIELD agents trying and failing to blend in with the crowd. He caught Agent Sitwell’s eye and gave him a smile, only to get a sullen glare in return. According to Clint, Sitwell may have complained about his encounter with Phil and then been firmly laughed at by his peers. It wasn’t Phil’s fault that Sitwell was a little on the trusting side.

The seats were already taken by members of the press, so Phil stood near the back and to one side, out of the way of the cameras and at the fringe of the crowd. The chatter in the room hushed a little, but didn’t die out completely, as Pepper walked to the front of the crowd and stepped up onto the low platform. “Hello, members of the press and invited guests,” she said, speaking into a small microphone she held in one hand. “Before we get under way, I would like to remind you that Stark Industries is in no way affiliated with the Avengers Initiative, nor is Iron Man an employee or the property of Stark Industries.” A few hands in the audience went up at the statement and Pepper ignored them. “Additionally, you are guests of Tony Stark at this event, not of Stark Industries.”

A door at the far end of the ballroom flew open and Tony Stark stepped through. Pepper was immediately forgotten as the photographers swivelled around to capture the grand entrance. “Pepper,” he called loudly across the open space, “are you being rude to my guests?” 

The dumpy man from earlier was a step behind Tony, looking very much like a security guard. Tony was dressed in a handsome suit that was perhaps a little too formal for the event, though it was dressed down a little by a thick tie with a pattern of red and gold swirls. He was clean and expensive-looking, but still had some stubble on his cheeks and a nasty gash over one eyebrow that was held closed with little bits of white tape. Phil couldn’t see a lot of bruising, and idly wondered if Tony Stark wore make up to hide such things.

And then Captain America walked into the room with the rest of the team trailing behind him. Still in his uniform, though the cowl and mask were gone and the red gloves were tucked into his belt. The shield was also absent, which disappointed Phil for a brief moment. He would have liked to get a closer look at it. Not that Captain America himself wasn’t worth looking at. It was strange, Captain America looked like he was easily double the size of a regular person, had such perfectly sculpted features that it was hard to believe he was real. And yet, he had driven Phil to a motel only three weeks ago and given him clean underwear. Seeing him stride powerfully across the room in his dusty uniform made their previous encounter seem like a dream.

Phil’s whole life was increasingly dreamlike, he reflected as he watched the Avengers take their seats. The Black Widow was absent, but a woman with glasses and dark blonde hair and an elegant if understated pantsuit circled around the team to stand next to Pepper, and Phil recognised Natasha’s face. According to the superhero fan forums that Phil tried to avoid spending too much time on, she was the one to watch when it came to fights because she was ruthless and creative. There was no real consensus on whether she had any superpowers. She was probably one of the deadliest people alive, but she had made Phil hot chocolate at a SHIELD hospital and had brought him sandwiches while he had been worried about his cat. 

Watching her from the crowd, Phil was a little surprised to see how much older she looked when dressed to blend in with the crowd. She could have passed for twenty-five when Phil had first met her, and now seemed to be a decade older as she opened a bottle of water and sipped from it. Clint too, slumped casually in a seat up on the little stage, looked unfamiliar. His hair had been buzzed short to match the area at the back of his head that had been singed in the explosion. He had bruising along one jaw and a mixture of bandages and plasters along his arms. But his face was also different. The bridge of his nose seemed a little sharper, the angle of his cheekbones a little higher. The tinted sunglasses he wore made his expression unreadable, but they also did a far better job than people seemed to realise of masking his identity. 

Thor was off-planet, and the sleepy-looking man sitting at the far end of the long table must be Doctor Banner. Some of the more casually dressed reporters were shifting themselves to be closer to him, and Phil assumed that they represented the science magazines. Generally speaking, questions about the Hulk were intercepted and answered by Tony Stark or Captain America, while Doctor Banner sometimes spoke up when it came to the more intricate details of whatever they had been tangling with.

This time, it had been tentacles. Tentacles had come out of the ocean and started attacking ships and squirting water at planes. Tentacles had been punched and kicked and shot and severed and, in at least one case, given a stern talking to. The creature they belonged to had never surfaced, and many of the questions were about its nature, about whether more attacks were expected. But there was no panic, and something almost rote about the nature of inquiries. Aliens had attacked key cities on several occasions and gods sporadically walked the earth. A tentacle monster probably wouldn’t even make the list of top-ten news stories of the year. Soon, attentions shifted and people started asking Captain America what he thought of the proposed implementation of a civilian-mutant database and Hawkeye what he thought about the recent flood of bows and arrows in popular media. (Clint didn’t have any thoughts on the matter as he rarely engaged with fictional texts, but he did comment that he like the new nicknames he was getting as a result of it all.)

Phil didn’t see whether Stark had made a gesture or if perhaps Pepper Potts was behind it, but the lights dimmed and hospitality staff in black uniforms with white jackets appeared from nowhere and started moving tables into position. Perhaps the staff at Stark Tower knew when to do these things without being told. Tony Stark lifted both arms up, a grand gesture that caused music that was just loud enough to make conversation inconvenient to start playing over the sound system. “Wow, look at the time,” he said into the microphone in front of him. “I’m sorry, but I am a busy man and I can’t afford to deviate from my schedule. And I’m pretty sure these guys haven’t eaten, so the next few hours are blocked out for gentle relaxation.” As if to illustrate the kind of relaxed evening they would be having, the music kicked up a notch and a bottle of champagne popped open across the room. 

The number of people in the ballroom had already doubled and Phil had no idea if there was a specific event on that night or if there were just groups of pretty things that roamed the streets of New York, sniffing out loud music and canapés. A young lady carrying a tray walked past and Phil snagged a glass of white wine. Phil didn’t know anyone present who wasn’t in a superhero uniform or trying to herd a superhero towards some food, so he found a pillar to lean against and watched the crowd. Some reporters were trying to press on and get interviews with Avengers. Agent Sitwell had placed himself by Clint and Natasha, fielding questions while the two beside him scarfed down canapés from a silver serving platter that Natasha had commandeered. 

For the most part, Natasha looked like some kind of aide, a Hawkeye wrangler. But every now and then they’d put their heads together and trade some private words, probably observations about the company they were in, and the closeness they shared seemed like such an obvious, tangible thing. It didn’t make Phil jealous, exactly, but he was Clint’s partner and Natasha was the one able to fuss over Clint and make him smile in that moment. It was… unfortunate.

Clint didn’t look like he would be free anytime soon, and Phil’s pillar was a little too close to the dancing and loud conversations for his comfort, so he shifted back over to the windows. Found a patch of wall right at the edge to lean against. It was almost entirely dark outside, and his watch showed that it was almost eight o’clock. The crowd had grown, and he was no longer at the very edge of the tangle. Captain America was easy to spot, his head visible over the crowd. He was ducking down a little to try and talk to someone over the music, probably a reporter. Tony Stark was tugging on his arm and trying to drag him towards the increasing knot of people dancing, and having no success whatsoever. It was comical to watch and Stark was playing it up, two hands wrapped around Cap’s bicep and leaning back so his whole weight was put to use in trying to budge the captain, who didn’t seem to have noticed at all. 

Phil couldn’t pick anyone else out as he scanned the crowd – though he did see plenty of people shoving, one woman trip a young man up, and a few people clearly using bad language, the common misdemeanours that were a pleasure to ignore when they were outside of his jurisdiction – until he spotted Agent Sitwell’s bald head in the crowd. From there he could make out a slash of blonde hair that probably belonged to Natasha, but he couldn’t see Clint in the vicinity. Phil frowned. A little over an hour had passed since Agent May had collected him; while it was still reasonably early in the evening, Phil had long ago given up his night-owl tendencies and he was mindful of the trip home ahead of him. He decided that he would circulate the room, maybe flag down a mutual acquaintance who could point him in Clint’s direction. But first, he needed some air. 

He slipped out of the ballroom and down the wide corridor towards the lifts. There were restrooms tucked to one side and Phil stepped into one and leaned against the clean, marble counter. There was no informative plaque stationed nearby, but it was a similar texture to the floor in the ballroom so Phil spent a moment running his fingers over the cool surface and trying to determine if it was true marble after all. He felt very out of place. The sense that he had spent the whole evening waiting for something that had not yet eventuated was certainly a part of it. Being surrounded by opulence while his own territory was worn and singed. 

Phil braced both hands on the countertop and let his head hang between his shoulders, pushed his hips back to stretch out his lower back, and sighed heavily. He had come to the tower to see Clint, not to feel sorry for himself. And Phil had avoided being intimidated by far scarier things than a room full of well-dressed people dancing badly. He shook his head to clear it, and told himself firmly that he was being silly. And hiding in a bathroom was no cure for such things.

He pushed away from the counter, paused to adjust his cuffs so just the right amount of his shirt was showing past the sleeves of his jacket, and then made sure his lapels were sitting straight. He gave himself an easy, friendly smile in the mirror, tried to memorise the feel of it on his face, and then opened the door and stepped back into the little hallway off the main corridor. And nearly walked right into Clint.

Phil jumped, a little startled, and Clint took a step backwards in response. He made a strange sight, in most of his uniform (Phil noticed that some pockets and pouches were absent), complete with the shades, and carrying a silver tray stacked high with canapés. They stared at one another for a moment, and then Phil forced himself to give Clint a small smile. “Hi,” he said, and then desperately hoped that they had moved beyond a need for smooth openings.

“Jarvis told me you snuck off,” Clint replied. Then he lifted the tray a little. “I stole these from a kid looking lost by the window.”

“Stealing from children? I expected better of you,” Phil returned. “And I did not ‘sneak’.”

Clint’s brow furrowed. “Is it ‘snuck’ or ‘sneaked’?” he asked, and seemed honestly perplexed by the question.

“Both,” Phil replied. “‘Sneaked’ is the standard past tense, while ‘snuck’ is the nonstandard past tense. ‘Sneaked’ is falling out of fashion though.”

Clint took a moment to absorb the information, and then nodded to himself. He hefted the silver tray in his hand slightly. “Canapé?” 

Phil took a mini bagel that turned out to be stuffed with roast beef and a square of avocado and popped it into his mouth. Clint followed his example, though given that there was a little clear patch on the plate he had perhaps been nibbling at the contents before he had found Phil. Phil swallowed and ran his tongue over his teeth. “It’s good to see you,” he said when his mouth was relatively clean.

“Better to see you,” Clint replied, and Phil couldn’t help the way the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. “You look good.”

“I’m quite fond of your ensemble,” Phil returned. “Weren’t you wearing something similar when we met?” he teased.

Clint grinned. “I dug it out just for you,” he replied.

Phil’s smile widened, and he made a point of letting his eyes travel over Clint’s body, taking in the uniform (looking spic and span; certainly not the one Clint had worn for three days while shooting tentacles), and the body underneath it. A few scrapes were visible, and one hand was bandaged. But Clint was whole, and healthy, and present. “Very romantic,” Phil said softly and then swallowed, trying to chase the little waver of emotion from his voice. And Clint was wearing those damn glasses that kept his eyes covered. His eyes were the most communicative part of his face, and with them removed from view Clint was a hard person to read. But Phil stared evenly at his own reflection in those tinted lenses and waited for Clint to respond.

“Let’s get out of here,” Clint said suddenly. “Let’s just... I need to get changed. I’m pretty sure I still have seawater in my underpants. Let me get into real clothes and then we can just...”

“Okay,” Phil said, partly because Clint looked uneasy with his own awkward stream of words.

“Okay,” Clint repeated. “Right.” He backed out of the little hallway, and turned right into the corridor beyond, away from the ballroom. Phil trailed after him as Clint led the way through the floor, past the lifts Phil had ridden earlier in the day and towards the heart of the building to a different, more sedate set of lifts. Clint pressed his thumb to a black pad below the call buttons, and after a moment it flashed green and then went dark again. The lift came within moments, and Clint and Phil were silently carried up through the centre of Stark Tower.

~*~

What first struck Phil about the rooms Clint lived in was how devoid of Clint they seemed to be. More faux-marble floors, though now the colours were an array of browns that were reminiscent of floorboards. Phil wondered how deep the covering went, if it was inches thick or if it would chip under the point of stiletto heels. The door to the suite Clint shared with Natasha opened onto a wide, round space that was lined with shelves that disappeared into the curves of the walls, and white leather couches next to low black tables. There was a large skylight in the ceiling, though Phil suspected it was decorative as he was sure there were many floors still above them. Doorways to adjacent chambers were invisible until they moved further into the space, and then revealed themselves to be artfully hidden in plain sight, masked by the perspective of the room. 

The area was decorated with little trinkets – small and sleek statues or striking pieces of rock. A small rack that held decorative knives which were nevertheless sharpened and ready to be put to use (Phil could see the small scratches along the blade where the shiny finish had been marred by a whetstone). There were no dirty coffee mugs sitting on surfaces in a limbo of purpose, waiting to be either cleaned or reused. No shoes kicked off and left lying on their sides by the couch. No dirt or stray strands of shed hair or flakes of dried blood on the white leather, which made Phil wonder if Clint sat on them at all. Clint wasn’t a messy person, exactly. He led a messy life and didn’t manage to do more than brush himself off at the door. 

Clint walked through the area without any pause, no brief tour of the space, and disappeared into a little nook on the right. Phil trailed after him and discovered that the nook curved back in one direction and tapered to a point in another, a comma-shaped area that was squared off by a built-in wardrobe at the tip and a bathroom at the wide top of the swell. Clint put the silver tray of bite-sized delicacies down on a cabinet that rested beneath a large, wide television mounted on one wall. The television had a thin layer of dust across its screen. The tinted glass doors of the cabinet barely masked its lack of contents – it looked as though Clint shoved the few odds and ends in his possession in there and forgot about them. A glove that had the SHIELD insignia on the back and two fingers cut off, a balled-up scarf, some dog-eared magazines and a paperback novel, a cardboard take out container. The room felt more like a hotel room than Clint’s territory, and Phil took a moment to drink in the new perspective of his partner.

And then Clint bent down to unsnap the clasps on the side of his boots, and Phil drank in that perspective of Clint as well. The material of his pants pulled tight over his butt, the visible muscles in the sides of his thighs. Phil felt very removed from Clint, felt selfishly absent from the moment as he tried to adjust to the calm normal after three days of worry. And so it seemed like the easiest way to remedy that was to move close to Clint, to put a hand on his bare arm as Clint tugged his boots off and prompt him to stand back upright. To run his hands over the many clasps and zips and tabs of Hawkeye’s vest and, through a mix of curious tugging and murmured instructions from Clint, find his way through the layers. 

The narrow gorget below Clint’s throat unsnapped on one side, revealing the tab of the zipper that ran up his middle. Buckles at the front of his hips needed to be unclasped, and then Clint grasped Phil’s hand and guided it around to the small of his back, where a thin strap was tucked up under the hard shell of the vest and tied in a sloppy bow that came free as Phil tugged on a loose tail. Clint shrugged out of the vest, let it fall to the floor, and Phil reached up to take the sunglasses off and reveal the hidden parts of Clint’s face. He had a black eye, had a cut across the bridge of his nose, mild sunburn on his cheeks and shoulders and the tops of his ears. Phil drank in the little injuries with his palms resting on the black under-layer that covered Clint’s chest, the tips of his fingers brushing Clint’s shoulders. Clint tossed the glasses onto the bed, and then pressed forwards, pressing his mouth against Phil’s in a soft, gentle kiss. The tenderness caused a fluttering in Phil’s stomach, and he felt such a keen relief that the feeling was still there, that it had merely been resting quietly. Phil sighed, and smiled, and Clint pressed against him with slightly more intent, gripped Phil’s hips and pressed them more firmly together as Phil ran a hand up to the back of Clint’s neck.

Phil didn’t know what Clint’s plan for the evening was, but he had mentioned getting undressed and so it made sense to slide his hands over Clint’s torso, find the soft fastenings at his side and shoulder and pull them undone. The under-layer was attached to the uniform pants, which ended with stirrup bands that went under Clint’s feet. It seemed like overkill in terms of keeping his pants tucked into the boots, given that the boots clipped onto the pants anyway. Not that Phil was an expert when it came to superhero uniforms. Unfastening the front of the pants made the waist of the ensemble loose enough for Clint to wriggle out of, and he did so with a practiced twist of his body, leaving him in dark purple boxer briefs and mismatched socks. A bandage wrapped around one knee, some bruising across his ribs. Phil put his hand on Clint’s stomach, slid it over the pale skin, so many shades removed from the rough tan of his neck and arms until his fingers curled around Clint’s side. Clint felt warm and dry and clean, smelled slightly different without the armour and the strong, oily fabric. 

Stripped down to next-to-nothing, Clint finally looked like himself again. Looked like someone that Phil was allowed to touch and be close to. When Phil leaned in for another kiss it was harder, was open-mouthed and eager. Clint made a small, pleased noise and Phil pulled him closer, ran his hands over muscle and skin and bandages and, when he felt Clint’s harness pressing against the top of his thigh, he turned and tugged Clint towards the bed, pushing him down onto it and taking a moment to drink in the sight of Clint sitting on the dark blue bedspread. Clint grabbed Phil’s forearms gently and pulled him closer, grabbed Phil’s ass and coaxed him to come closer still, to climb onto the bed and straddle Clint’s lap.

“I missed you,” Clint said, mumbling into Phil’s skin as he mouthed kisses along Phil’s jaw.

Phil’s hands tightened for a moment on Clint’s shoulders. “I missed you, too,” he replied, then slid a hand up to cup Clint’s cheek, to tilt his head back into position for another kiss. It was harder than he had intended, though whether that was due to Clint’s enthusiasm or the knot in his own chest he couldn’t be sure. 

Clint slid up hands up under Phil’s jacket and gripped his shirt at the small of Phil’s back, using little tugs and jerks to pull it out of Phil’s pants. “Can you stay the night?” Clint asked, their faces still so close that his lips brushed Phil’s with the question.

The question made Phil smile with amusement – Clint had always been very upfront about wanting sex, and the sudden shift to using a euphemism when sex was very much on the cards was an odd quirk. Then Phil realised how unusual the situation was. Being invited to Stark Tower when Clint usually tried to keep some kind of a buffer between his work and Phil. (A buffer that Phil was grateful for, most of the time. It led to some inconveniences in matters of life and death, but it also meant that Phil was sheltered from creepy SHIELD agents and less likely to make a fool of himself in front of superheroes.) Seeing Clint’s bedroom for the first time after months of a relationship in which Clint had never extended an invitation and Phil had never asked for one. 

Phil pulled back a little and looked down at Clint’s face. Clint gave him a hopeful grin, but he looked tired and there was something wary in his eyes, as though he were hoping for the best and expecting the worst. 

“I have school tomorrow,” Phil said, which wasn’t a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it along the foot of Clint’s bed, which was definitely more towards the ‘yes’ end of the scale.

Clint slid his large hands up Phil’s back, pausing to cup his shoulder blades before lightly dragging his nails down the back of Phil’s ribcage. Phil shivered, squeezed his knees against Clint’s hips. “I promise not to keep you up too late,” Clint said in a low, warm voice as Phil tugged at his own tie.

Phil huffed in disbelief. “Make a promise you can keep,” he teased. “Just make sure I get up early.”

Clint’s eyes lit up with mischief, and Phil kissed him again to smother the joke that was forming on Clint’s lips.

~*~

Phil woke up the next morning, curled against the warm expanse of Clint’s back, feeling lazy and content in Clint’s bed. Clint had strong, positive feelings about Phil’s mattress, but Phil couldn’t see that Clint’s own bed was any hardship to laze around in. Phil shifted one leg and stretched it out, pointing his toes and shifting his hips and letting the stretch spread all the way up his side, and Clint made a happy noise in his sleep. Phil settled back into position and pressed his cheek against Clint’s shoulder. It looked like a beautiful day in New York, given the way the morning sunlight was streaming in through Clint’s window. Phil was usually up while it was still...

“Shit,” Phil said, sitting up in bed. “Fuck, I’m late.”

Clint rolled over and threw his arm around Phil’s waist, snuggling into his side. “You’re not late,” he mumbled into the bare skin of Phil’s back.

“I’ve got ten minutes to get out of Manhattan,” Phil said, shoving Clint away. “So yeah, I’m late.”

Clint made an irritated noise as Phil scrambled out of bed and started sifting through the clothes on the floor. “What’s the problem?” he asked. “So you’re late. Whatever.”

“You said you’d set an alarm,” Phil snapped, giving Clint an accusatory glare.

Clint rubbed his face with both hands and made an incoherent growling sound before dropping them away. “Jarvis, buddy,” he called out, tilting his face up to the ceiling. “What happened to the alarm?”

“Mister Stark felt that everyone deserved a lie-in.”

“He’s not wrong,” Clint mumbled, and Phil frowned ferociously as he tugged on his pants, his back to Clint. He went to pull on his shirt but, of course, it was a mess from the night before. He balled it up and threw it on the floor, before striding over to Clint’s wardrobe. If Clint couldn’t get Phil home in time to change, then he could donate a shirt to help preserve Phil’s reputation.

Clint flopped onto his back and watched Phil dress with a frown. “Why are you so pissy?” he asked. “It’s just school.”

“Because I have a job to do and I don’t like not being able to do it,” Phil replied shortly.

“Look, relax. I’m sure that it can wait an hour or two for you to get there.”

Phil snorted as he dusted his jacket off. “Because you know so much about how my job works.”

Clint pushed himself up on one elbow. “Well it’s not like you tell me a whole heap when I do ask about it.”

“Well you’re doing a great job right now of convincing me that you’d take it seriously.”

Clint threw both hands up with a frustrated “Gah!” and flopped onto his back once more. “If you’re such a bitch about being late then why didn’t you set your own damn alarm?” Clint snapped.

“Because I don’t have my phone with me,” Phil returned, just as sharply.

“Well don’t fucking take it out on me because you forgot it.”

“I didn’t forget it,” Phil snapped, glaring at Clint as he tried to fasten his watch. “I was told to leave it behind.”

“By who?”

“Whoever you sent to escort me last night.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Well, why did you listen to them?” he asked, as though Phil had done something unforgivably foolish.

“Because the last time I went against SHIELD instructions I had numerous people threaten to throw me in a cell, yet again, and forget about me.”

“Well if you pissed people off that bad you were probably doing something stupid,” Clint replied hotly.

“Damn right,” Phil shot back, his voice raised. “I was sneaking into a hospital and saving your neck.”

Clint looked stunned for a moment, and then scrubbed a hand over his face again. “Fucking...” he mumbled, and then trailed off. Phil tugged his shoes on and strode across Clint’s bedroom to the door. “Wait,” Clint called. “Lemme get dressed.”

Phil tried to force the lid back on his temper, though he was aware that he was perhaps a little late in trying to reign it in. “Enjoy your lie-in,” he said coolly.

“I’ll show you out,” Clint protested, but he was still sitting in bed and looked very much like he would prefer to be asleep.

“Out is down,” Phil replied bluntly. “It can’t be that hard to figure out.” Then he stepped through the doorway and walked through the unnervingly neat living area beyond. 

He was denied the temptation of slamming the door to Clint’s suite because it was an electronic one that swung shut behind him with a soft hiss. The gleaming steel doors of the elevator were feet away, and Phil jabbed at the sleek black control panel beside them. A neat red X lit up on the screen beneath the fingerprint he had left behind on the glossy surface. Phil frowned at it, and jabbed at the panel again. Then again and again, his hackles raising with each denial because damned if he was going to slink back to Clint with his tail between his legs just because Tony Fucking Stark was so technology-obsessed as to have fingerprint security installed on elevator call panels.

Phil heard the soft ‘woosh’ of Clint’s door opening behind him and shifted his jaw back and forth irritably. He was far enough away from their argument to recognise that he had... not shown his best version of himself. But he was still wound up and angry in an unfocussed fashion. He wanted space and he wanted distance and Clint following him with neat clicks of shoes on the faux-marble made Phil’s hands clench.

But, of course, it wasn’t Clint who stepped neatly into place beside Phil. “Clint forgot to get you a visitor’s pass,” Natasha said. A casual observation, delivered with... fondness, was Phil’s best guess. The kind of fondness that was familiar with faults. It put Phil oddly in mind of his cousin, and he was distracted momentarily by the mental note he made to call her sometime soon.

“That he did,” Phil replied, his tone light but a little stiff. Natasha reached past him and pressed a dainty finger to the sleek black pad. She got an illuminated green circle for her contribution, and white numbers in the centre counted off the floors the lift was passing by to reach them. “Did you have fun last night?” he asked, turning to glance at her. She was casually dressed in close-fitting jeans and a grey tee under a cute little leather jacket, but there was a groomed air to her – not a hair out of place and make up that would be identical to natural, glowing beauty if Phil hadn’t seen the signs of bruising around one temple the night before. 

She gave him a disbelieving look (the same expression he had been seeing on student’s faces for the past twenty years, usually in response to assurances that they would do fine on their exams. That kind of ‘are you serious?’ face) and then silently shook her head, her lovely hair barely sliding across her shoulders.

“Not even a little fun?” Phil pressed, teasing her because she was young (too young, in Phil’s mind, despite Clint’s assurance that she was older than she looked) and sarcastic and Phil tended to fall into the same kind of dialogue with all people who ticked those two boxes.

She gave him a small, sweet smile. “The most fun I had was telling Sitwell you were standing behind him, and watching him jump.”

Phil shifted awkwardly, and Natasha’s smile turned a little wicked around the edges. The lift finally reached them, and the parting of glossy steel doors bought Phil a little time to push down the embarrassment he felt. It seemed like he was only a master of first impressions when he was in the safe little kingdom of his profession. 

“I very rarely tase people,” he felt the need to say as the doors slid closed.

Natasha gave him a bland look that Phil was certain covered some other, more telling expression. “Because you can’t, or because you don’t need to?”

Phil frowned at the omitted ‘because you don’t want to’, but decided to let it slide. “Sometimes I am just blessed with a lack of motivation,” he replied.

Natasha smiled, genuine amusement kept small and for her own benefit. “I heard that Agent May was your escort last night,” she said. “You should be flattered.”

Phil took a moment to try and find a reply that what neither impolite nor a total lie. “She was... unparalleled company.”

Stark Tower, due to its recent and imaginative makeover, had several floors through which the streets of New York could be accessed. They passed plaza level, promenade, ground, and level 0, and dropped a little further.

“Where are we going?” Phil asked, curiosity finally dousing the lingering flames of irritability.

“Basement,” Natasha replied. “I’m taking you to school today.”

Phil wanted to protest, but his opposition to tardiness held his tongue. Anything that was faster than the subway was going to be met with enthusiasm. Well, almost anything.

“Just please tell me you don’t have a motorbike,” he said as the lift gently halted and the doors parted. Natasha stepped out of the lift and he fell into place behind her and off to one side.

“I do,” Natasha said over her shoulder. “But I think turning up on the back of my scooter might not be the most inconspicuous arrival.” She pulled a slim fob attached to a mean looking key out of her jacket pocket, and hit the red button in the centre of it. A pair of moody headlights lit up beyond a row of bright sports cars with Stark’s name emblazoned on their numberplates, and gazed out at them like the glowing eyes of a beast coiled in the shadows. Phil’s stride faltered just a little as he wondered if the moment wasn’t just some indulgent daydream.

“Don’t worry,” Natasha said, giving him a reassuring smile as she opened the driver’s side door. “This is just a girly little ride.”

Phil returned her smile, and then some. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said, and she gave him an approving look in response.

~*~

Phil’s journey home from school was far less glamorous. He walked, and the many blocks between work and home gave him far too much time to dwell on the day.

Natasha had dropped him at the curb before the second bell had sounded. Not early enough for him to avoid an audience of students as, unshaven and dishevelled, he climbed out of the sports car and leaned against it for a moment as Natasha called through the open window. 

“Don’t be too hard on Clint,” she had advised, or perhaps requested. “There’s never really any point, since he’s always harder on himself.”

Phil had already been regretting his outburst, but he wasn’t going ask Natasha to ferry an apology back to the Tower. And while Clint had made it clear that he had complete trust in Natasha, Phil simply didn’t know Natasha well enough to assume that he was in good standing with her. Best friends and boyfriends were often a strained relationship, simply because both parties had different ideas as to what would be best for their beloved. Phil also didn’t want to have a conversation with an audience of gawking teenagers in attendance. So he simply nodded, and rapped the roof of the car in a parting gesture.

He had gotten a gleefully amused look from Nina when she first sighted him, and it was only through holding up a stern finger and assuring her that they could talk _after_ he had cleaned up that he managed to avoid being interrogated in the front office of his own school. Nina had a ‘party night grooming kit’ in her desk – a disposable razor, a bar of soap that lathered well, and a little atomiser of perfume that she could use (along with some wardrobe adjustments and some smudgy eye makeup) to go from secretary to vixen if she should get invited out on short notice. Phil made use of the kit (minus the perfume) to clean up a little in the faculty toilet just past Nina’s desk. He still had a smear of dried come on his stomach, and he frowned furiously as he tried to scrub it away. Of course, the process was not at all helped by Boryn knocking the door open and coiling around Phil’s thighs. He had missed his morning petting session with the wyrm, and apparently his day was not allowed to begin until the situation was rectified.

And his day had not improved from there. Sitting at his desk in stale clothes with the niggling feeling that his body wasn’t clean enough, spending the first twenty minutes of his work day with a balled up tissue pressed against his jaw to stem the bleeding of a scrape he’d given himself through a lapse of attention and wyrm-related jostling. He had a toothbrush in his desk, but Nina brought him a coffee and a list of calls he had already missed, and one hour and then another had slipped by before he managed to find the time to use it.

There was something depressing about it. The guilt and shame of having failed to do such a simple and common and unquantifiable thing as ‘be professional’. And he didn’t even have his phone, that convenient little device on which he stored so much of his life, to help him limp through the day.

Phil was not in the best mood as he walked home, lured away from his desk before he could put the very last of the day’s work to rest by thoughts of a hot shower and clean pyjamas and food of some kind. He hadn’t packed a lunch, obviously, and had worked through the break regardless. He’d fuelled himself through the day with coffee and several bars of fundraising chocolate from the box on Nina’s desk. 

But before the shower there were stairs to walk up, and the abandoned mix of coffee grounds and smoked books to clean up. Then he wandered around tiredly, collecting the items that Agent May had tossed on the floor last night and plugging his phone into its charger. He switched it on as soon as it was plugged in and tapped the rubber case against his front teeth as he waited for the operating system to load. Unlike the grouchiness of the morning, his mood in that moment was an exhausted annoyance that nevertheless sparked and flared in irritation when he felt his phone buzz like a vibrator on the high setting with a day’s worth of missed notifications.  
Phil saw that he had messages from Clint. A _lot_ of messages from Clint. Even as picked his phone up, a new one came through. The little message preview bar at the top of the homescreen showed some unflattering adjectives and inconsistent allcaps. Phil held his thumb down on Clint’s contact icon until the call went through. When Clint picked up, Phil didn’t give him a chance to speak, just brusquely said:

“I just got home. I haven’t even seen my phone until now. I haven’t read any of your messages. What’s up?”

There was a pause at the other end of the conversation as Clint absorbed the information. “You didn’t have you phone with you?”

“No. I went straight to school, and I didn’t get a chance to come home and grab it at lunch.”

“Ah,” Clint said delicately. 

“I haven’t been ignoring you,” Phil said gently. “Not intentionally.”

“No, of course,” Clint replied. “I hadn’t even... So, uh. How was your day?”

“I’ve had better,” Phil answered. “It was busy, and annoying, and I was grumpy for most of it, which was my own doing.” Phil leaned against the back of his couch and crossed his legs at the ankles. “I’m sorry for being rude to you this morning. “

“It’s fine,” Clint said, though his voice sounded a little small.

“It was a shitty thing to do,” Phil said bluntly. “I understand if you’re upset with me. And I’d like to know what I can do to make it up to you.”

“Really, you don’t...” Clint trailed off for a moment, and Phil bit absently at his thumbnail as he waited for Clint to come to a decision. “You could delete those text messages,” Clint said at last. “Not that I, uh. I just think that. Um.”

“Sure,” Phil said easily. “Delete them without reading. Unless there are some gems in there you want me to see?” he teased. 

“Noooooo. Definitely not. No gems from me. You’re much better with words. In fact, just delete all of my text messages, ever.”

“I don’t know,” Phil said, some flirty warmth entering his voice. “I have a few favourites that I like to look over every now and then.”

“Really?”

“I like your texts,” Phil said simply. Clint made a happy little hum in response, and upon hearing it the knots in Phil’s shoulders started loosening. 

“You know,” Clint said slyly. “If you want a little more than some old texts, I could head on over.” Phil’s smile froze on his face. “I am dying for some real food,” Clint continued, “and I think we nearly have cheesesteak right.”

“That is a _very_ tempting offer,” Phil lied (they apparently had very different views on their cheesesteak-related ‘progress’). “But I’m tired and I’d like to avoid a repeat of this morning’s dash to school if I can. Maybe dinner on the weekend?”

There was a pause before Clint replied, and Phil worried at his thumbnail again. “So, is that no dating on school nights, or..?” Clint trailed off, leaving Phil to suggest other options.

“Just no late nights,” Phil said quickly. “And by the time you get here, and we cook, and we eat, it’s going to be a late night.”

“Right,” Clint said, sounding a little downcast.

“If we meet up earlier it should usually be fine,” Phil continued. “Although, the year is wrapping up so I’m going to have longer and longer hours until summer break.”

“You probably work harder than I do,” Clint commented. His tone was a little flat, giving his words a despondent feel in Phil’s ear.

“Educators are everyday heroes,” Phil said, the slogan falling from his lips without a thought. He considered the phrase and then added, “Though we’re the dorky kind that doesn’t have uniforms or weapons.”

“I like your principal suit,” Clint replied. “That’s not very dorky.”

“But as far as superhero costumes go, yours is way cooler.”

“It’s called a _uniform_ ,” Clint said sharply, and the prissiness in his tone made Phil smile.

“It’s still cooler,” Phil said firmly.

“Well, yeah.” Phil huffed a laugh at the confidence of Clint’s reply. There was another moment of silence between them, but it was easy and relaxed. It occurred to Phil that he was lucky that Clint was so forgiving, that he responded well enough to problems when they hit him head on.

“So,” Clint said at last. “Weekend?”

“Sure,” Phil replied happily. “I’ll see you on the weekend.” 

They ended their conversation there, and though Phil had to bite back one last line before hanging up it was a pleasant enough close. He went into his message centre and, laying his left hand over most of the screen to cover the words, he selected all of the texts that Clint had sent his way. He paused for a long moment. A small voice towards the back of his mind pointed out that Clint might have been joking when he suggested that Phil delete them. Another chimed in to say that it wasn’t really _fair_ — Clint had seen Phil lose his temper that morning, so why should Phil protect Clint from the ramifications of doing the same?

Phil frowned at his phone, though really he was frowning at himself, and allowed himself a heavy sigh before deleting the messages. Nothing good came from reading a tantrum over and over, noting every typo and unfair assumption and only getting more and more steamed up in response. 

Phil liked Clint. A lot. He put his phone down and started shedding out of his stale clothes, and made a conscious effort to avoid making a big deal of small, mostly insignificant problems. And then he had a quiet dinner by himself, and tried not to feel too guilty for enjoying it.


End file.
